Into the Digital Future: Fostering Well-being in the Digital Age with Melissa Mercado

Join us for a conversation with Melissa Mercado, a lead researcher at the CDC, where she addresses the challenges of digital harassment and online safety. Alongside Laura and Jordan, she delves into the world of online bullying, cyberbullying, and their impact on well-being. Melissa highlights the real-life consequences of online violence and emphasizes leveraging online spaces for positive connections and skill-building. Discover proactive steps to combat digital harassment and create a healthier online community.

This transcript of the Into the Digital Future podcast has been edited for clarity. Please listen to the full episode here, and learn more about the series.

Melissa Mercado: Hello, everybody! My name is Melissa Mercado. I serve as a lead behavioral sciences on the division of violence prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC.

Jordan Shapiro: Thanks. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do with the CDC? I mean? And specifically, I think we’re kind of curious for our listeners like, what’s the CDC have to do with digital media? like what? Explain that.

Melissa: Well, I am a researcher. I’m not on the communications, information, dissemination, health, education aspect of things. But that’s one way in which we work with media with digital media. But I have to say that right? But they are fantastic. I love my com’s team. But from my perspective, from the research perspective. I am a researcher on violence prevention. And we know that violence can happen online or offline. Therefore it is important to understand what is happening online to know that what happens online doesn’t always stay online, and it can have a real impact, especially talking about specifically violence prevention, which is my area. It can have an impact on people’s individual, emotional, psychological, and even physical health well-being. So we are looking into that, we are interested in understanding what is happening online, right? For example, cyberbullying, online harassment, stalking that happens online. We also want to understand the good stuff that is happening online all for the social benefits of online. And how can those be leveraged to prevent violence online and offline? And then also looking at online spaces as a platform, right as a tool for disseminating messages, for implementing intervention, for the prevention of violence, both virtually and in the physical world.

Jordan: So this, this whole, I mean it’s sort of a public health perspective. And that’s, I think that’s out of a lot of people’s purview like we don’t think a lot about this idea, you know, like we hear CDC, we think all you must be dealing with like invisible germs, right? But there’s a whole public health initiative that people don’t think about. Is that right? Am I understanding that correctly?

Melissa: Absolutely. And violence is a public health problem because of the consequences that it can have in physical and mental well-being and health. It affects our communities that are off to individuals. It affects lifespan. There’s a burden in terms of the injuries, right for life, expectancy for use for young adults and all of our communities. So it is important that we do consider violence as a public health problem. And that’s the approach that we’re taking. If you look at the public health model, we first need to understand what is happening. Who is affecting it? What is the risk and protective factor for it? How can we leverage it? Design interventions, rigorously test them, and if they work widespread dissemination. We want everybody to know about it.

Jordan: That’s great. So how do you define digital violence like, where’s the line between, like, you know, I’m in a game with my friends, and it involves shooting, and it involves a level of virtual violence. When does that become actual? The kind of violence that the CDC would be concerned with, or the public. But the kind of violence that we can be concerned with from a public health perspective.

Melissa: So I know what you’re talking about. You made me think of my husband. When I got married, I knew he was a gamer right? But if I was in another room and I didn’t know the context, and who he was playing with, I would think that they were getting at each other’s throat. Oh, my God! It would be concerning. But he was playing with his best bud, and they were very competitive and very friendly in nature. So where is that line? How do we distinguish that? Good point. We don’t know. It’s challenging. It is a big challenge. It’s something that we need to look at. But going back to your question of defining digital violence. That’s a challenge. Right now, in the literature, we have actually completed a recent literature review looking at different forms of violence in online spaces and in the same research literature, there’s no consistent definition, so that is something that must be addressed. But we do know that different forms of violence can have a manifestation and interpretation. It can appear through online spaces, or can be facilitated through online spaces, like cyberbullying, online sexual violence, harassment, intimate partner violence. We’ve also seen research coming out about how online spaces have been used to facilitate in-person violence from gangs and other types of community violence.

Laura Higgins: So I know, Melissa. We have met several times before and we’ve been involved in a few projects. And I know that you spoke at a huge conference. This year, the SXSW Conference. That’s an interesting place for the CDC to be. Obviously, I’m hearing the focus of your work, but what were you there speaking on specifically, what could you share about that?

Melissa: So it was amazing to be at SXSW because we were able to share that public health perspective and also listen in from the Gamers community and the communications, entertainment, and community perspective. It was wonderful and the study that you’re referring to Laura is a study that we are pending publication regarding gamers, online adults in the United States that play video games and their experiences that they have online specifically, cyber bullying experiences, their motivations and reasons for playing video games and social engagement that happens while they’re playing video games with others online. And the important reason why we’re doing this is because the findings will help us better understand what is happening when people are playing online video games and identify opportunities for them also by interviewing different subgroups. We can see if there are any differences and how we can tailor messaging and approaches for them. And we found it is consistent with what we’ve seen reported elsewhere, that nearly half of us adults report playing video games online with others. Interestingly, most of them are young adults. We know that, but that overlaps also with the population that has the heaviest burden for community violence. Yes, there is a connection. There’s an overlap and opportunities and therefore it could be a potential venue. also for intervention and for disseminating messages. Three out of five U.S. adults are estimated to play online with others, mostly people that they know, but yet two in the 10 of those U.S. adults that play video games choose not to self-identify as video game players.They wouldn’t say that they’re video team players. So that’s interesting. What about self identification? Do they feel part of the video gaming community or not? That has implications for our messaging. And how we engage in online gaming communities.

Laura: So what about you then, Melissa, you mentioned that your partner is a gamer. Do you consider yourself to be a gamer?

Melissa: Originally I didn’t. I was part of those 2 in 10 that said I didn’t. But I am a faithful Bejeweled player, and I will take you on Pac-Man.

Laura: Okay, game on. We love those challenges. Amazing. What really surprised you the most about the research? What was your kind of “a ha” moment when you really realized that, you know, something really stood out?

Melissa: It was very notable to me that a big proportion of us adults are estimated to endorse empathy towards fellow players, and that is very important, but a lower proportion endorses you know, doing something about it, or may not know what they need to do something about it. So that’s the challenge they might feel for what’s happening, what they see, and they will want to do something, but do they do it? do they not? What is the challenge? That we need to explore further and this study was focused on cyberbullying, right? But we also need to look at other forms of violence and there’s more in the works.

Laura: Just one follow-up question on that. So a lot of our audience out there are parents and caregivers, educators, policymakers. What would be your key takeaways? I know that the whole thing has not been shared yet, but what couple of top tips or takeaways would you give for those audiences?

Melissa: For parents. We found from our study that most are playing with people they know, mainly family members, so there’s an opportunity there right to engage to connect with children and families, but there’s also a proportion of users, of players, that are playing with people that they don’t know and that doesn’t mean that it’s bad. There could be very strong connections and communities that happens with that, there’s learning experiences, a skill building that happens online. So let’s leverage that in this new playground that our children are supposed to and try to understand that a little bit better. What they’re playing with them could be important, but also recognize the risks that are out there as well. There’sthe good and the bad, I think, with any type of interpersonal interaction, whether it’s virtual or in person. We need to be mindful of the challenges and the risk for children.

Jordan: Okay. So are the trends that you identified, or the or any of the findings you had about online violence? How do they match up with what you know, with what we already know about real world violence, cricket, and mortar violence? Is this a very different space, or is it sort of the same kind of patterns and perpetrators?

Melissa: We need more research. That’s my answer, Jordan. Because we’re learning more, this literature review that I mentioned that we just completed. We’ve seen that there’s been an increase in published scientific studies looking at online forms of violence in the past 10 years and there’s some form of violence that are specific to all online spaces. We’re learning more about bills as well and that’s very important. Increasing the research to better understand, so what is happening online and how to address it. That is something that has been emphasized. We’ve seen reports coming out calling for additional resources, and we are committed to doing our part in making that happen.

Jordan: Yeah, I want to ask you about something else. When I was prepping for this episode, I saw that your team has also done a lot of work around adolescent mental health and the impact of COVID. And I’m kind of curious like, you hear anecdotally about pandemic babies all the time? like, what do we actually know? So far, I hear from my colleagues at the University, you know, the pandemic made kids this way. I mean, I’m sure there’s an impact. But I don’t know what we know versus what is just sort of gossip.

Melissa: Yeah, we’re starting to know there are a couple of studies that have come out from CDC and from others looking at data from that specific pandemic time, looking at aces childhood experiences and their risk of exposure. We’ve seen some increases in some forms of Aces. There’s been publications about that, but we both have seen, and this one I can talk to you about because I was leading that research; parent’s concerns about children’s bullying during before the pandemic. And now overall, it kind of stays the same. But if you look at the parents that say that there is concern increase. It increased because they saw that they were tying into racism, or because they were concerned about the pandemic situation. and in terms of decreasing, one of the reasons that was mentioned was because they were not at school. We keep going out of school, and that is as a public health practitioner from, and a violence prevention researcher is concerning to me, because bullying is not always not only and not always limited to the 4 walls of the school or the school campus, right? Or the school location, and any ways it can happen online. So they were still at school. They were virtually a school. They were not physical in it. So do parents understand how cyberbullying can work through online spaces? More research that we need to look into.

Laura: Yeah. And of course, what we do know with online bullying is just how pervasive it is. You know that in the old days, if you got bullied at school you would go home, and if you were lucky you lived in a different place than the bullies, and you know you were kind of safe in your house, but as we know these days, it just follows you wherever you are. It’s in your pocket, on your phone. It’s, you know, and any platform you use whether it be a gaming platform or social media. So I think helping parents to really understand that in the light of what you’re saying is really really important. 

Melissa:You’re right, Laura, and for you, online spaces and physical faces are independent one from the other. For kids, sometimes the relationship that they have in person, then they continue their relationship and the interactions online. So I don’t know, sometimes we think that they’re too distinct worlds, not so much.

Jordan: Sometimes I see my kids sitting in the park, and they’re all just online together on their phones. 

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you know, I always try to put a positive spin on everything. And I think one of the good things to remember is that while these sorts of things can happen online and they can be really negative for young people, but equally that’s where they find their people. There is a huge amount of support for them both, whether it be, you know, finding access to services that they might want to speak to, or actually just their friends that are online. You know, we do see a lot of that kind of upstander behavior where people will step in. And you know, really try to support people who are having a bad time, but also step in and challenge those who are doing it. So there’s always the Ying and the Yang with anything to do with online spaces, I think. Well, this has been really, really fascinating, and I know that we’re really looking forward to seeing the research that we’ve talked about and what comes next. But what’s next for you in your role? And what’s next for the CDC? What projects have you got coming up that might be interesting to our audience?

Melissa: Well, there, I mentioned, this is a first of a couple of studies that we have in the works. regarding gaming communities to try to better understand gamer’s experience as well those playing into the connected video games. We have some work coming up regarding sexism and misogyny, another one taking a deeper dive into cyberbullying, and we continue to have internal and external collaborations for research, for translation and dissemination activities with the communications industry with academic partners. We want to fill that gap, help fill that gap on research that is needed in this space for our kids and for our communities as well.

Laura: Thanks, Melissa. So you know, as we said, we have a lot of policymakers and parents who listen in on this podcast. Where would they be able to find those bits of research? Where would they go to look if they wanted to read up on some of these things?

Melissa: Well, there’s some information on our website. The research specifically that I was talking about today is still pending publication. So that will be coming up. I’ll be happy to share with you afterwards. But I would stay tuned, there is more coming up.

Jordan: Anything that we should have asked that you want to make sure we cover?

Melissa:  One thing that I wanted to mention is, norms in online spaces. Maybe those may need to be re-examined. or look more deeply into we’re talking about, you know, the example of my husband right playing with his friend. And is that violence, or is it not violence? It could be a friendly competition. But I wonder if we all understand the consequences that those interactions can have online, so additional research is needed with that additional data to better understand it from the industry. It’s a survey, what we did for our study. So this is a self report, but definitely different sources of information and different approaches are needed. It’s not just on the parents, it’s not just on researchers, not just on T-shirts. It’s not just on policymakers. This needs to be concentrated, coordinated or maybe collaborative. Maybe that’s a better word; collaboration.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And I love this message that just more and more and more research is needed. Jordan:and I both geek out of this stuff all the time. And actually there has just been an announcement by the UK government, the department of culture, media, and sport literally a call to action on more research into the video games industry and the effects, positive and negative that it has on people. So this is obviously a global movement. Let’s see all this research coming. And hey, maybe we’ll get you on next year. You can come and tell us about the latest studies that you do, Melissa.

Melissa: Maybe, maybe we can. It’s been a pleasure, and I am always always happy to contribute and collaborate. We’re in this together, we have a single goal, which is the safety and health of our children and our families.

Jordan: What do you play when you’re not playing Pac-Man?

Melissa: Oh, what I’ve played! When I’m not playing Pac-Man, I’m playing Bejeweled. Anything that’s a puzzle.  Matching numbers, colors or shapes, I’m there. 

Jordan: That’s amazing. Well, thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure.